1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to splitting of a data stream and directing data sub-streams to pre-registered destinations.
2. Description of the Related Art
As businesses continue to move online, distributed computing environments become more complex and, thus, more difficult to troubleshoot. Indeed, entire businesses now desire to connect their critical business systems directly to employees, customers, vendors and other important constituencies. To this end, many internal or external business network applications are now being connected to the Internet's World Wide Web to make the information accessible from anywhere using conventional browser software.
Technical support services and programs diagnose and solve hardware or software problems encountered by computer users. Traditional technical support centers place their emphasis on internal tracking and productivity tools, such as problem tracking systems. Such “back end” systems exist internally to the support organization and are usually transparent to the customer. Although back-end systems aid internal efficiency, they do little for the actual problem resolution process. Problem resolution is typically left to telephony-based technologies such as agent-based automatic call distribution support centers and intelligent voice response devices.
Such techniques attempt to diagnose and address problems on a remote node without actually having the technician travel to that node. One method for providing service is for the user to request service via the Internet, rather than over the telephone. The Internet provides a simple and convenient medium to exchange information regarding the problem and also allows the user to download possible software solutions to his problem and allows the service provider to monitor the problem from a remote location.
Software service providers may have several support personnel on hand to address requests for service as they arise. However, the service providers may have various levels of experience in certain software fields. In the alternative, certain service providers may have more education with certain technological features. A need exists to provide a method to assign the most suitable service provider to each request for support. Efficiently assigning the most suitable service provider requires splitting data from a data stream. The present invention addresses this need.